“It Was the Will of the Lord to Crush Him”. By John Piper
The death of Christ was the will and work of God the Father. Isaiah writes, “We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God.… It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief” (53:4, 10).
Yet surely, as God the Father saw the agony of His beloved Son and the wickedness that brought Him to the cross, He did not delight in those things in themselves (viewed through the narrow lens). Sin in itself, and the suffering of the innocent, is abhorrent to God.
Nevertheless, according to Hebrews 2:10, God the Father thought it was fitting to perfect the Pioneer of our salvation through suffering. God willed what He abhorred. He abhorred it in the narrow-lens view, but not in the wide-angle view of eternity.
When the universality of things was considered, the death of the Son of God was seen by the Father as a magnificent way to demonstrate His righteousness (Romans 3:25–26) and bring His people to glory (Hebrews 2:10) and keep the angels praising Him forever and ever (Revelation 5:9–13).
Therefore, when I say that the sovereignty of God is the foundation of His happiness, I do not ignore or minimize the anger and grief God can express against evil.
But neither do I infer from this wrath and sorrow that God is a frustrated God who cannot keep His creation under control.
He has designed from all eternity, and is infallibly forming with every event, a magnificent mosaic of redemptive history.
The contemplation of this mosaic (with both its dark and bright tiles) fills His heart with joy.
And if our Father’s heart is full of deep and unshakable happiness, we may be sure that when we seek our happiness in Him, we will not find Him “out of sorts” when we come.
We will not find a frustrated, gloomy, irritable Father who wants to be left alone, but a Father whose heart is so full of joy that it spills over onto all those (Christian Hedonists) who are thirsty.
John Piper
John Piper studied Literature and Philosophy at Wheaton College. After college, he completed a Bachelor of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena California.
